It's time to set the record straight on the history of online political debates, in the wake of press reports and claims that this week's Yahoo!/HuffingtonPost/Slate debate was the first.

The Web on the Candidates

Over forty people have posted videos in response to John Edwards' question, "what are you going to do to bring about change?," which is part of YouTube's Spotlight series. Almost all of the respondents are younger (21-40-ish) voters, and while some of them have concrete ideas for change ("I'm getting my MBA in policy"; "I teach science") others are frustrated that Edwards put forth no ideas of his own and simply asked us what we would do ("I want to know why you're doing what you're doing"). I'm looking forward to seeing Edwards' responses -- let's hope he's offers something more substantive this time.

We've known for months now that Facebook users have been supporting the presidential candidates on the site in the same way they're befriending them on MySpace, but Facebook hasn't made the number of supporters for each candidate public, until now. The leader in supporters is, predictably, Barack Obama, with over 64,000 supporters. The next one down the line is Hillary Clinton, with over 19,000 supporters. The Republicans are slow to get on the Facebook boat, Mitt Romney has just over 6,000 supporters. Shira Toeplitz at the Hotline has the scoop, noting that we'll be seeing a lot of fluctuation in these numbers. "Since some of the facebook profiles started updating yesterday, each candidate (except for Brownback) has lost between 10 and 60 'supporters.' That fact exemplifies that what many online strategies have been preaching for months: Just because they're your facebook friend, doesn't mean they actually support your candidacy." Also, why are all of the candidates part of a network called "Election 2006"? Stay tuned; we'll be charting these numbers soon.